Awakened Sinners III

In this posting I will begin finishing my series on "Awakened Sinners." For the two previous chapters see these postings:

Awakened Sinners I (HERE)
Awakened Sinners II (HERE)

Also, I would recommend that one read these chapters from my book "The Hardshell Baptist Cult":

Regeneration Evidence (chpt. 53) (HERE)
Chpt. 54 - On Conviction I (SEE HERE)
Chpt. 55 - On Conviction II (HERE)
Chpt. 56 - On Conviction III (HERE)

These chapters on regeneration and conviction are intimately connected with the subject of "awakened sinners."

From Chapter 54 I wrote:

"the great Calvinist leaders, both Baptists and otherwise, have viewed the experience of "conviction of sin" as most generally that which goes before the regeneration experience, and not after. It is not generally viewed as an evidence of spiritual life, though it be an evidence of the awakenings of conscience. Such awakenings of conscience are often experienced by unregenerated men. Men are "seekers" before they become "finders." Salvation is in the finding, not in the seeking alone."

Stephen Charnock wrote:

"The soul must be beaten down by conviction before it be raised up by regeneration..."

That is very clear and yet it is against modern Hardshell notions.

Elder Wilson Thompson wrote:

"We shall now proceed to show what men may experience and not be under the work of the spirit of grace. He may feel all that weight of guilt which the law of God charges upon him; and yet not be a subject of the spirits operation, for the law is the ministration of condemnation and death."

Now, I am sure that this was the original position of the "Primitive" or "Hardshell" Baptists. Conviction of sin, says this founding father of the denomination, is no proof of a new birth. Yet, this is denied by today's Hardshells.

Said George Whitefield:

"Conviction will always precede spiritual conversion. You may be convicted without being converted, but you cannot be converted without being convicted." ("Repentance and Conversion" - SEE HERE)

Keep in mind that Whitefield, like all the old Calvinistic writers, believed that "conversion" was regeneration or the new birth.

The Error of "Preparationalism"

John Owen (1616-1683) addresses the subject in the third volume of his Works in a section entitled, "Works of the Holy Spirit Preparatory Unto Regeneration." Owen writes:

"Ordinarily there are certain previous and preparatory works, or workings in and upon the souls of men, that are antecedent and dispositive unto it [i.e. regeneration]. But yet regeneration doth not consist in them, nor can it be educed out of them."

Again, it must be said. The oldest Calvinists and Puritans did not see either an "awakening" or "conviction" experience as being an effect of "regeneration" or of the new birth. They were not Hardshells in this matter. In fact, I have not been able to find any old writer who taught that a mere awakening of conscience or conviction of sin was a proof of rebirth.

Wrote Thomas Boston  (emphasis mine): (here)

"A person may have sharp soul-exercises and pangs, and yet die in the birth. Many "have been in pain," that have but, "as it were, brought forth wind." There may be sore pangs of conscience, which turn to nothing at last. Pharaoh and Simon Magus had such convictions, as made them to desire the prayers of others for them. Judas repented: and, under terrors of conscience, gave back his ill-gotten pieces of silver. All is not gold that glitters. Trees may blossom fairly in the spring, on which no fruit is to be found in the harvest: and some have sharp soul-exercises, which are nothing but foretastes of hell."

Again, this is the teaching of Scripture and of the old Baptists and Calvinists. Boston also wrote:

"Some have sharp convictions for a while: but these go off, and they become as careless about their salvation, and as profane as ever, and usually worse than ever; "their last state is worse than their first," Matt. 12:45. They get awakening grace—but not converting grace; and that goes off by degrees, as the light of the declining day, until it issues in midnight darkness."

He also wrote:

"There may be a wonderful moving of the affections in souls that are not at all touched with regenerating grace. When there is no grace, there may, notwithstanding, be a flood of tears, as in Esau, who "found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears," Heb. 12:17. There may be great flashes of joy; as in the hearers of the word, represented in the parable of the stony ground, who "with joy receive it," Matt. 13:20. There may be also great desires after good things, and great delight in them too; as in those hypocrites described in Isa. 58:2, "Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways – they take delight in approaching to God."

"Common operations of the divine Spirit, like a land-flood, make a strange turning of things upside down: but when they are over, all runs again in the ordinary channel. All these things may be, where the sanctifying Spirit of Christ never rests upon the soul—but the stony heart still remains; and in that case these affections cannot but wither, because they have no root."